This parking lot in Downtown Santa Barbara may not look like much—and it isn’t—but it’s a vital lifeline for people experiencing homelessness in the county, and has been for 20 years, when the nation’s first safe parking program was launched in the county.
The program offers overnight parking to individuals and families living in their vehicles.
"We are providing a place for people to have shelter at night. It's not a place for them to invite friends over. It's not a place for them to set up an encampment. It's a place for them to come at night, sleep and go about their business during the day," said Kristine Schwartz, the Executive Director of New Beginnings, who partner with the county on the program. She says that despite fears of some local residents, the program has proven its value and viability.
"99.9% of the time people are like, 'oh wow, we had no idea. This is such a great program. You know, we're so happy to have you here'," she said.
"And we've been supported by schools and by day care centers and by many organizations that you would think might be resistant to having such a program. And they see the quality of the program, the appreciation of the people who are in the program of having somewhere safe to be. There's no dedicated federal funding at all for this type of a program. And there really isn't any dedicated local or state funding as well," said Schwartz.
Democratic Congressman Salud Carbajal of Santa Barbara is now putting his voice to securing funding for similar programs nationwide in a bipartisan bill which would unlock federal dollars to expand this lifeline, which he says is critical.
"It's important because it's yet another important tool as we look to address the houseless/homelessness crisis in our communities," said Carbajal.
"Real estate, rents, and mortgages are at an all time high throughout the country, here in California and on the Central Coast, and more and more people are finding themselves in crisis and falling into these circumstances. So what does this do? This program adds to the safety net to make sure that we are providing yet another opportunity to help people before they fall even further and to get back on their feet," he said.
"But I think even programs like this initially, people raise concerns or anticipate some challenges, but I think this program has ferreted out over 20 years of experience how to do this and how to do it right," said Carbajal.
Safe parking programs do exist in other states, but in others there’s been a rise in laws outlawing people experiencing homelessness from living in their vehicles and an outright ban in 4 states.
1st District County Supervisor Das Williams says, now that people know it works…he hopes other organizations might offer their parking lots to the program.
"New Beginnings now has 27 locations, 200 individual parking spots, but still a long waitlist. At first, it was almost all government slots. We thought a lot more churches and businesses would take part, and that didn't end up being the case. My hope is that now, after it's been in operation for nearly 20 years and been a proven success, and that the monitoring is a proven success, that we will have more businesses and churches willing to participate," said Williams.
It’s a short-term measure which doesn’t address the lack of affordable housing in the city, but does make sure those without a roof over their heads, at the least, have a safe place to sleep at night.
